Book Review: The Lovely Bones (young girl disappears, tells her story)

The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold (Back Bay Books, 2004, 369pp HB, $21.95) Review by Skye Anderson

How to characterize The Lovely Bones? Some have called it another To Kill a Mockingbird* but perhaps it is more in the vein of Thornton Wilder's beloved Our Town*.

The Plot

Although The Lovely Bones is more of a character development book, with many characters over a decade, rather than plot-driven, it starts with the disappearance of a 14-year-old girl and her murder as told by the girl herself, looking down from heaven and into the lives of the numerous characters: her family, her friends and budding boyfriends, the perpetrator himself, the detective. We follow each, back and forth, over nearly 10 years and see how they grow, how the community comes together, how Susie Salmon's family, once close, grows apart only to come together again in the end. It is the journey itself that is the story, and, yes, there is a dog - named Holiday.

The Style

Susie herself is the narrator. She has a lyrical adult voice yet like a child's. 

Bones is a long book that does not take long to read. It jumps around a lot, even within one chapter, which breaks up the flow but keeps you reading to find out what happens. But it is not exactly a suspenseful mystery: we know who probably did it but want to find out how the characters come to that conclusion. But we also see ourselves in so many of the players as we re-live our childhood (1973), 

How can a book about a kidnapping and a grisly murder spellbind its readers into a reflected view of love and family and growth and growing up and memories and childhood? You will simply have to read this classic to experience it (and discover the meaning of the title, too).

*

PS - There is a dog. He digs up an elbow.